I always feel that I am indebted to Africa in terms of artistic dissemination. So when my good friend Shirley Rebuffo introduced me to the work of this man, I did not hesitate to make a selection. Lots of color, linear patterns and compositional purity. Hope you enjoy it as much as me.

Ephrem Kouakou is one of the world’s foremost African painters. Born 1962 in the Central Ivory Coast village of Toumodi, West Africa, he currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland, and Ivory Coast, West Africahis country.

His powerful, vivid paintings are in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum, New York, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington DC. and Fondo Del Sol Museum, Washington DC.

He is noted for his bold blending of indigenous African visual sensibilities and folk motifs with Western creative techniques. Born in 1962 in the Ivory Coast village of Toumodi, Ephrem is a member of the Baoule group of the Akan people. As a young man he trained to be a medicine man, participating in many initiation rites. This actualized a deep spiritual life that manifests in his work. Themes of community, the spiritual power of masks, protective spirits, and animal guides, are reflections of an unseen world that brings a deeper meaning to our lives. When he was 17 years old, Ephrem walked over 2500 miles from his Ivory Coast village to Algeria, a journey which took over three months. He then made his way to France, where he studied at France’s best art academies, including L’Ecole des Beaux Arts, Angers (1981-1982), Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Aix-en Provence, (1982-1983) and École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris (1984-1986), where he graduated with honors.

His works on both canvas and paper are noted for their highly saturated, intense color, achieved by mixing raw pigment powders into glue. Kouakou has exhibited in galleries and museums internationally including France, Belgium, Switzerland, and the United States. He is currently represented by Still Life Gallery in Ellicott City, MD.

This is an open art blog, so you could find images eventually offensive or umconfortable.

If you're an artist and find here images of your art you want to be removed, just tell me and I'll do it immediately. I try to ask for permission always if artist is alive and there's a way to contact, bot not always is possible and there are things I think worth to be known.

In any case, the copyrights of all the images contained in this blog, except where noted, belong to the artists or the legal owners of such rights, and have been published nonprofit and for the only purpose of make the works known to the general public.

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